Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Applause! Applause! Review of Three Pints Shy: A Very Merry Holiday Celebration at Under St. Mark's Theater by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens

This review of Three Pints Shy: A Very Merry Holiday Celebration at Under St. Mark's Theater was written by Dr. Thomas Robert Stevens and published in Volume X, Issue 6 (2016) of the online edition of Applause! Applause!

Three Pints Shy: A Very Merry Holiday CelebrationWith David Anthony Wayne Anderson, David Mikofsky & Jonathan SiregarUnder St. Mark's Theater94 St. Mark's PlaceNew York, New York 10009Reviewed 12/4/16

If you are interested in celebrating the holidays with Pickle Fights (the abbreviated version of a sword fight), Pint Glass Prophets ("Give him 15 pints of lager or ale and he becomes a wise old sage."), Beggarmen ("I've got the sky. The world is my home."), Galway Girls ("Hair was black. Eyes were blue. I lost my heart to a Galway Girl.") and a new perspective on how God punishes Naughty Children ("When you're being naughty, the least of your problems is Santa Claus."), this show might be the one you want to see this holiday season. Three Pints Shy, an upbeat, talented Irish pub band, even includes Sevivon Sov Sov Sov (Spinning Top) sung in Hebrew for those observing Hanukkah. Using an expanded text of "The Night Before Christmas" as a loose storyline to introduce us to the various characters that will inhabit the stage, we meet Grandpa ("Give Grandpa more of his sleeping juice." "Yeah! Grandpa is fun again.") and poor Paddy Murphy, who is now deceased (memorialized in the song The Night That Paddy Murphy Died).You can't attend a performance of a Celtic Band without alcohol being a main topic of discussion. Audience members are encouraged to purchase drinks from the bar, but every bottle was outrageously expensive (at least, in my opinion). My hard cider cost me $7.00. Three Pints Shy performs a Traditional Irish Drinking Song containing the lyric, "We have no head or hands but we continue to drink," as well as Raise A Glass and One Last Drink. We are told that when you drink, there are Irish wherever you go! There was a hilarious parody of Music Of The Night (from "Phantom Of The Opera") written by Chant Macleod entitled The Things I Drank Last Night ("I can feel the vomit ascending like a comet. I blame it on the things I drank last night"). Another Chant Macleod parody was sung to the tune of Silver Bells entitled Meat and Cheese (where you can get "Dairy from a Fairy"). During All The Best Irish Songs (an improv song written by the band), audience members were asked which countries all the best Irish songs come from and then the band took off creating lyrics for the country selected (Albania, Guatemala & Equestria - from My Little Pony where everything is made of rainbows and hugs- on the evening I attended). The band also performed Rocky Road To Dublin, Hal-an-Tow, Christmas In Killarney, Pint Glass Prophet (written by Jonathan Siregar), and God & The Little Children (written by David Anthony Wayne Anderson), which is a true story drawn directly from the Bible!Only three of the four main band members were available to make this gig (Jonathan Siregar playing the Bodhran, David Mikofsky on Mandolin & Guitar; David Anthony Wayne Anderson on Penny Whistle & Guitar - Robbie Taylor was absent). However, they were more than able to proficiently perform the various song arrangements. In addition, with three people on stage, they were able to add the joke, "I love it when you're between him and me." to which the response goes, "That's what she said." An important takeaway line is "May We Never Get What We Deserve!" The show ended with a surprise warning. We were told, "Remember, if your parents don't come up with the ransom money, you're all dead by tomorrow morning." I snuck out of the theater before dawn but I am pleased to report that the band members hung out after the show speaking to the audience and that everyone was offered prizes and cookies! If this Irish band continues to gain in popularity, Christmas may one day be renamed Three Pints Day but even if it is not, you should at least buy a few of the band's CDs and drink three pints in celebration of the good times you have had listening to their music. For more information, visit http://www.threepintsshy.com